Only so much to go around

Tonight, I've been confronting the realities of how a nice tax refund really can disappear without even trying.

When we did our taxes this year, we got a very hefty sum back in a refund - I won't say how much because my Midwestern sensibilities won't permit it - but let's just say that it was several thousand dollars. This is due almost entirely to the fact that I over-withhold from my paycheck like nobody's business. This stems from the first year that both Heidi and I were working and we both claimed each other on our W2s and we ended up owing several thousand dollars. Since I don't desire a repeat of that scenario, I have gone against the advice of many friends who said that I shouldn't let the government use my money for free for a year when I could be investing it and making money off of it. That's all fine and dandy but it would require me to actually invest it or save it versus blowing it on iTunes or something equally frivolous. I don't trust myself enough to do that and, honestly, I kind of like that big check coming to me in spring when we're trying to recover from Christmas.

We went into this tax season knowing full well that we were getting all the gutters replaced on the house in the spring. As Heidi is fond of saying - if we weren't already getting new gutters, after this winter, we would be. There were icicles BEHIND the gutters. We're actually doing a pretty significant upgrade by getting LeafGuard, which will come in handy especially because in our heavily treed neighborhood, I get up on a ladder and clean the gutters out at least 3 times a year. They come next Thursday to install it. I, of course, am right on schedule and have completely freaked myself out by reading some of the complaints on the web. I'm comforting myself with the fact that my neighbor has LeafGuard and likes them and at any rate, it's too late to worry about it now.

Anyway, we never planned on paying for all of it outright. Instead, we decided to pay the lion's share of it out of the tax refund and then finance the last little bit. Well, I was filling out the financing forms tonight and something makes me nervous about it, even though the financing is through WellsFargo and they already own our soul. A part of me wants to just pay for the whole shooting match, using the money I had set aside for my iMac just so I don't have to worry about payments, no matter how manageable they might be. Doing that puts off my iMac for quite some time, but it would probably be worth it for the peace of mind it would bring.

There was also the matter of the completely unexpected surgery that our cat Mia had to have to remove a malignant sarcoma from her back. Those of you without pets would scoff at the amount we spent on an animal (it was less than a thousand), but that's what you do when you're a pet owner. She is home now and hopefully cancer-free, although there's no guarantee the tumor won't grow back. We kind of debated the point of surgery in a 16 year old cat, but the consensus was that removing the tumor was worth doing once. If it buys her even another year, it was worth it because without it, she had a life expectancy of months and at the rate I saw that tumor grow, I would be willing to bet it would have been weeks. So there went some more of it.

We also gave into Apple's PR machine and pre-ordered the iPad which comes out on April 3rd. Heidi actually could use this professionally, and it's really the eReader that she wants plus it's something we can all use and enjoy, so there you go. Even when you're dirt poor, you still have to have your luxuries. And the iPad definitely falls into the "luxury" category. That's where I think the Dave Ramsey plan falls apart. Nothing would set us up for failure financially more than a "You can eat nothing but rice and beans for the next 8 years. You can take no vacations. You can never splurge on yourself." approach. Eventually, we'd just rebel against it and that would be that.

So who knows what we'll do. I just know that it sure is easy to spend money. But the good thing is that we are not charging any of this, which is really a shift for us. For so many years, I just figured that the money would be there. And while we're far from destitute, we're also in significant debt. Some of it is through no fault of our own and some of it, yeah, we made some bad decisions. In years past, I would have just bought my iMac knowing that the money from the tax refund would be there to cover it. But when I decided to do this, I decided to do it differently and not purchase it until I had the cash in hand. What ultimately pushed me to that decision is that I don't want the experience of a new computer to be marred by anxiety about whether or not I had the money to buy it. I would prefer most major purchases to be done like this from now on, but I'm also not so naive as to think I'll never charge anything ever again. Sadly, you really do still need a credit card.

I don't know what the point of this post is. I'm home alone tonight and I'm feeling kind of restless. Perhaps this was my attempt to turn that restlessness into something with purpose rather than letting it turn into anxiety that goes nowhere. It pretty much worked.

It's just a feeling

After a winter of nearly constant snowfall and cold temperatures, we've finally managed to thaw out. A solid week of 50 degree weather has pretty much decimated our snow cover and I don't think you'll find anyone that has a problem with that. Spring really feels like it's in the air, and while we're not out of the woods yet as far as the freakish April snowstorm goes, we're all breathing a little bit easier.

I was headed to a late afternoon appointment the other day when spring really hit me. It was a combination of things - the smell in the air, the lack of snow, and the feeling of having been released from prison. Yesterday, as I was leaving work and it was 58 degrees outside, it hit me again. The warmer weather is part of it, but it's more than that. It's a feeling that I can't describe.

Naturally, it made me want to listen to Bella Donna, which is exactly what I have been doing.

Stevie Nicks is such a "spring" artist to me and of all her albums, nothing says March or April more than Bella Donna. I've told the story of how, in the fall of 1987, I became infatuated with Stevie Nicks. The reason for this was twofold - Fleetwood Mac had released their first album in 5 years that spring, Tango In The Night, and Madonna was headed into a year long dry spell which would end with Like A Prayer in the spring of 1989. As a consequence, Stevie pretty much had my undivided attention. My mom had the Rock A Little record album and I bought both Bella Donna and The Wild Heart in October or November of 1987. I listened to them throughout the winter to the exclusion of so many other things I shudder to think of what I might have missed. I remember coming home from school and going up to my room to soak up the music and ponder the impossibly high heels that Stevie was wearing on the cover of the album. But even with those heels, she probably would still only come up to my chest.

So by the time we got to the spring of 1988, I was a goner and completely obsessed with Stevie's music, particularly Bella Donna. Is there any better album for a shy and introverted teenager with a streak of unnecessary melancholy? Stevie pushed all the right buttons. With her vague lyrics that could be applied to nearly any situation, she seemed like a kindred spirit, like the wiser and older aunt that was so much cooler than your own parents. I must have listened to the song "Think About It" a zillion times that year alone, always entranced by the lyric "Even when you feel like your life is fading/I know that you'll go on forever, you're that good/Heartbreak of the moment is not endless/Fortune is your life's love." It reverberated inside my 15 year-old head like nothing else, when the world seemed to be crashing down (it wasn't) and my teenage angst felt as big as a mountain, even though it really could have been measured in angstroms. 23 years later, it still resonates, for no other reason than it's true. Heartbreak of the moment is not endless. Lather, rinse, repeat.

The thing about Stevie's music is that you're on the ride with her. To truly have the Stevie experience, you have no other choice but to feel what she does. I feel Bella Donna contains her most vivid examples of balls-out honesty (pardon the expression) in a career littered with what from other artists would have amounted to an uncomfortable overshare. You experience her disillusionment with fame on "After The Glitter Fades" and her internal struggle with relationships on "Leather & Lace." The album really is her, something that is only hinted at in her work with Fleetwood Mac.

But it's the title track that I've been coming back to over the last week or so. The opening 5 piano chords are part of the soundtrack of my life. The structure of the song defies conventional description. There's really no bridge and no concrete refrain. But the melody is very strong and it doesn't take 30 bars to complete. Stevie talks about how the song "Bella Donna" is "about getting a little bit of my normal life back." I also liked this interpretation I found online:

I definitely see how this song is kind of a letter to yourself. "Bella donna...my soul..." This song conveys sort of an understanding and compassion with the lowest parts of yourself and presents a sort of crossroads mood; you've taken stock of your situation and now you're ready to take a step towards a direction.

Well, no wonder it hit my teenage self like a ton of bricks. Talk about a time in your life when you're making steps in new directions.

I also find it telling that they should mention writing a letter to yourself, because there are so many times over the years that found myself wishing I could either write to or go talk to the 15 year-old version of me. In years past, I have wanted to go back and slap him silly. But the older I've gotten, the more at peace I've become with that part of me because, like it or not, that adolescent me is still in there. And what I've found is that I have to treat that part of me with a liberal dose of kindness. It's nowhere near as equipped to deal with the world as my current version is, which probably makes me less equipped than I think I am.

But I'll always have Bella Donna, and I doubt that even 25 years from now it will resonate any less. It's just a feeling I have.

Evidence of brilliance

Well, it isn't exactly the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, but here's the audio blog post/podcast that Jeff and I did on Sunday. I was going to try to be all cool and put in intro and outro music, but clearly I need a remedial lesson in how to run the software because I couldn't even do something as simple as that.

So as a consequence of my technical (in)abiity, it's pretty bare bones, but it's what we have. Instead of all the fancy bells and whistles, you get Jeff and me going on for an hour about how we became Madonna fans and what we consider the highest points of her career. As with most things, it didn't quite go in the direction I thought it would, but I still think that it will be appealing to Madonna fans and possibly to people who know us. And I like it because it's a sliver of who I am.

I want to apologize in advance for the fact that Jeff and I talk all over each other. See what happens when you let two huge egos in the same room? And you also can see that even though we might both be fans, we don't always agree on everything.

Download this insanity here.

If you like it, let me know! If you don't, please consider my fragile ego before providing feedback.

By the gods

I remember seeing the trailer for the awkwardly titled Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief before the fair-to-middling Alvin & The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel. It looked intriguing, but given its February release date, I figured it to be a stinker. So last night when Heidi and I were trying to find a movie to go to and we had it narrowed down to Percy Jackson and Avatar, both of which were at the dollar theater, I almost said that we should just forget the whole thing and stay home and watch a movie on TV. Instead, we went to Percy Jackson and what a wise decision it was.

Based on the book of the same name, the movie introduces us to Percy Jackson who appears to be just another unmotivated, ADHD-battling teenager. But unbeknownst to him, he is actually half ancient Greek god - his father being Poseidon, the god of the sea. When Zeus' (Sean Bean) lightning bolt goes missing, Percy is accused of stealing it in order to start a war between the gods. What follows is a great blend of the classic stories of Greek mythology superimposed over the modern world as Percy tries to clear his name and save his mother from the clutches of Hades.

As a kid, my dad told me the stories of Greek mythology and I was spellbound by them. The story of Medusa especially appealed to me - a woman so ugly that she could turn any living thing into stone. I loved the monsters - minotaurs, Furies, the Hydra, among others - that were so liberally spread throughout the myths, as well as the stories of heroes beating nearly insurmountable odds to win the day. It didn't hurt that Clash of the Titans came out when I was 9 which brought so many of these monsters to stop-motion life. At more than one point during PJ&TO, I found myself smiling like that 9-year-old, completely wrapped up in the coolness of seeing the 7 headed hydra or Uma Thurman's completely unexpected appearance as a certain snake-haired woman. Sure, some of the effects pushed up against Van Helsing bad, but overall, they were passable and, more importantly, were used to help tell the story rather than take the place of the story. (Alice In Wonderland, anyone?)

The movie was criticized for being too Harry Potter-ish, and I can see where the criticism comes from. Both storeis have a misunderstood boy with great power and legacy who is whisked away to a magical world where he truly comes into his own. As Madonna says, I've heard it all before. But it's the incorporation of the ancient Greek myths and where the story goes with what could otherwise be a rather derivative plot that earns my forgiveness.

There's a remake/rehash of Clash of the Titans coming out in 3D (what's NOT coming out in 3D these days?) the first part of next month, but as far as I'm concerned, that movie is completely superfluous. Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief made me feel like a kid again and had a healthy dose of respect for the Greek myths, which is more than I think the dirty, overblown CG-filled Clash remake will be. For that reason alone, Percy Jackson is the true heir to Clash of the Titans' throne. More than worth the premium Saturday night dollar theater pricing of 2 dollars each.

And now for the audio portion of the program...

My friend Matt has produced a podcast with his friend Lance for nearly a year now - I was even a guest on it once. Sadly, it's on hiatus right now as Matt is basically working the equivalent of two and a-half jobs, but I'm hoping that they pick up with podcasting again once his life settles down again. I fell off the listening bandwagon late last year, but I always enjoyed it - even when the topics were only of tangential interest to me. Knowing one of the podcasters personally certainly helped - you really can't say that about most podcasts.

I always told Matt that my friend Jeff would be a great guest on his podcast - and it's true. I knew that Jeff would be a natural, so for the Oscars this year, our friend (and his significant other) Caryle suggested that we record our own podcast, in which we detail our picks for the films that were "snubbed" by Oscar in years past. So that's just what we did. We sat around the MacBook and prattled on for 40 minutes. I finally sat down today to listen to it and I will never post it anywhere that can be found. It's not that I am embarrassed by its content - far from it - but we are clearly amateurs at this. But for a first try, it wasn't bad. It entertained me and I sent it to all the podcast participants (Heidi, Jeff, Caryle and Mary) but it's not really fit for other people's consumption. Most of the jokes are long standing in-jokes that would just make most people think we were on drugs while we recorded.

But that was enough to give Jeff the podcasting bug, and he e-mailed me this week to see if I would be interested in doing one with him. The only trouble is that he lives in Indianola, which is an hour or so's drive from here. The distance pretty much rules out getting together to do anything semi-regularly. Plus I didn't have any idea what we would talk about. And who in their right mind would listen?

Well, he convinced me and we're going to record something tomorrow when we rendezvous with Heidi's mom to collect Anna from a weekend at Camp Grandma. It's going to be Madonna related and the details have yet to be truly hashed out, but I can think of no more natural topic for us to discuss, as he has been my partner-in-crime for all things Madonna for 20+ years now.

This will definitely not be a regularly produced thing. My schedule (and Jeff's) simply doesn't allow it. If it happens even once a month, I'll consider that miraculous. I still don't think that I have the technical know-how that Matt has to do this with even a tenth of the quality he and Lance do. But it feels right and rather than call it a podcast, I'm viewing it more in terms of it being an "audio blog post." If I feel like it goes well, I'll be posting a link here. I may or may not pimp it on Facebook.

A significant portion of the credit goes to Matt who proved that this kind of thing can be done and done well. I know that something like this would never have even crossed my mind had it not been for his blazing of the trail.

So we'll see what happens. One thing is for certain - I shouldn't lack for things to say.

This stinks

If ever a picture begged to be either 1) captioned or 2) turned into a LiveJournal userpic, it's this one.


It's kind of got a what-if-Streisand-had-done-the-Sex-book-instead-of-Madonna vibe about it.

And if you don't find that disturbing (or hilarious, depending on how you look at it), check your pulse.

Year of 25 Books: #4 - State of Mind

Everyone around here knows that I read every last word of Heidi's m/m fiction - featuring a great plenitude of man-on-man action. What you might not know is that hers is not the only m/m fiction I read. This comes as a result of having a non-paying side gig of proofreading galleys for Dreamspinner. And to be 100% honest about it, I really enjoy reading this genre more than I ever thought I would. I blame 5 seasons of Queer As Folk (and one laughably bad season of The Lair) for causing me to be completely "eh, whatever" when it comes to the sex. And seriously, it's just sex and the sex is but a mere portion of it. It doesn't threaten my masculinity. To paraphrase a friend of mine, I don't need a hetero-proving empty seat between me and a friend at the movie and I've only gotten huggier as I've gotten older.

And what a story I would have missed had I let the m/m aspect of State of Mind turn me off. State of Mind is Libby Drew's first book for Dreamspinner, and if this is any indication, it'll be the first of many many more.

Set in a non-specific future, the book is equal parts X-Men, James Bond and Jason Bourne. The book opens by introducing us to Grier Crist, a "Gifted" who has until recently worked for The Organization, a global outfit that basically uses the Gifteds' special powers for the good of humankind. Only Grier has reason to believe that the Organization is not all that it appears to be and severs his ties with them. So The Organization sends one of its best men, Alec Devlin, after him. Together, they untangle a complicated web of of deceit and intrigue.

There were so many things I loved about this book. One of my biggest beefs with m/m fiction is that so often, the protagonists do not act like men would act. As another of my friends has told me, they may be gay, but they're still guys. I felt like Drew had a really good handle on both Grier and Alec as men. Although they didn't start out as friends, I completely bought the eventual camaraderie that developed between them. Her mix of barbs, sarcasm and a liberal sprinkling of sexual tension made their interactions very believable and a joy to read. I found myself saying to myself, "man, if only I could be half as witty as these guys!" I guess that's what happens when you have a writer like Drew providing you with your lines.

As a rule, most of my interactions with the thriller genre - whether it be a James Bond movie or a one of the Jason Bourne novels - I feel like the stupidest person in the room. It seems like I am perpetually the last person to put the pieces together and easily lose track of who is chasing who and why I'm supposed to care. Most of the time, I feel like I need the Cliffs Notes. Not so with State of Mind. Drew is a masterful storyteller, dropping plot points like bread crumbs - just enough to keep us following her but never revealing too much too soon. I admire someone who can weave a complicated story and never really leave us confused, except for the times when we're supposed to be. When you arrived at the end, it all made sense - even the things I didn't think made sense while I was reading it.

And yes, there is sex. It is very well done sex. I get really pissed off at people who just presume that romance novels - and especially novels in this genre - are nothing more than cleverly disguised porn. I'm fond of saying that either those people haven't read many romance novels or haven't watched very much porn because nothing could be further from the truth. Heidi says that the sex in a book always has to move the plot forward, ALWAYS. There's not tons of sex in this book (less than in others I've read), but what there is passes The Heidi Test and is always crucial to the plot. It's never gratuitous or sex for the sake of a sex scene. It is, honestly, a relief after the carefully laid build-up. It is in that respect that the comparison between novels in the romance genre and porn breaks down. Show me a porn in which there is no sex scene for the sake of having a sex scene and I'll tell you to come back when you've found porn.

The payoff for me in these books is always the relationship. I've heard it referred to as "emotional porn" and if that's what it is, so be it, but I think that tragically oversimplifies it. It's no secret that I am very interested in masculinity and how it's evolving and I can't understate the role that gay men have in this evolution. The emotional openness that I've seen in these books just reaffirms for me that straight men should be reading these books. We have so much to learn from each other.

I won't be reviewing (or even counting) every book I proof for Dreamspinner in the 2010 Book Challenge, but State of Mind was too good to not include. I can't recommend this book enough to fans of the genre and to sci-fi/thriller fans as well. Go pick up State of Mind from Dreamspinner in paperback or eBook and help this book skyrocket to the #1 spot on the Dreamspinner bestseller list which is where it belongs.

And yes, that is me on the cover of the book.

Taxing no more & a follow-up

The 2009 taxes are done! In the end, she came up with almost identical numbers as I did, and I got to pay 300 bucks for the privilege. But at least I know they're done right AND we have a good place to jump off of for next year which promises to be a little more interesting as hopefully Heidi's writing will not operate at a loss.

I'd like to address the previous post as well. I know that it came across as that which I hate the most and for that I'm almost a little ashamed. Heidi chewed me out for it and told me I couldn't quit blogging until I reviewed Libby Drew's new book for Dreamspinner (which I will be doing.)

I think that what I'm mostly doing is just trying to find a different direction for what I write. Sometimes I'm very frustrated because as much fun as it is to talk about divas (I've been thinking about writing something about Mariah Carey's first album lately), I do crave deeper subjects. I think it's possible to talk about them without barfing your insides all over the place or emptying your purse out for everyone to see, but that fine line is difficult and it's one I struggle with.

Basically what I need to remember is this: this is who I am, you can like it or not. You can love me or leave me, but I'm never gonna stop.

Waiting for a change of heart

UPDATE: Obviously this blog will go on. I would be lost without it. But bear with me as I work through some conflicting emotions and feelings about what direction I want to take it in.

If there's any one thing that I DESPISE with every fiber of my being, it's bloggers that come on and, in a desperate attention grab, announce that they're quitting or thinking of quitting.

That said, I'm giving some serious thought to being done with this. Or at least taking a break. As other blogger friends of mine have said to me over the years, who doesn't think of hanging it up at least 2 or 3 times a year? But then what would we do with all our time?

The reason I'm even going there at all is that I don't feel like my mindset is very much in line with the tone of the blog right now. I'm having a hard time bringing myself to write the posts about cheesy pop music. It's just not where my brain is these days. This leaves me with topics to write about that I think push up to the edge or what's ok to discuss in a public forum such as this. It's hard to write (and, conversely, not to write) about those things. If something serious is moving me or if I'm feeling something intensely, it's hard to write about Madonna's plastic surgery. But it's also hard to write about the undercurrent because, well, it's just too much exposure for this little introvert.

I suppose one option is to take out all personal stuff and just write about music and TV and books when the spirit moves me. But when I think about doing that and how it basically amounts to neutering the blog, I just can't bear to do that to what really is one of the few things in this world that I've created all on my own. Another option is to take my toys and head over to LiveJournal where I can control who sees my content a little more. Wordpress also offers password protected blogs, but I've been through that before and have decided against it. The thought of making friends and family log in to read stuff kind of turns my stomach, especially since I know a lot of my friends are pretty entrenched in Blogger.

As usual, it comes down to balance and how much do you want to expose of yourself? Whenever I do a post that is even semi-personal, I feel like I've put my heart on my shirt sleeve for the whole world to see. The reality is that it's probably only a sliver, but even after all these years, I'm still uncomfortable with people seeing anything of me that is not explicitly controlled. I'm like Madonna - I need handlers or something! I'll admit that I want pretty much everything on my terms so that I can control it and ultimately exert some control over the outcome, but the truth of the matter is that I control only a very teeny tiny portion of what happens. The sooner I get that through my thick skull, the better off I will be.

So right now, I'm on the fence I guess. I honestly can't see myself going through with it, but I also am seriously at an impasse right now. My gut instinct is to save this in draft form and not publish it because in 2 days I probably won't feel this way, but I think that writing it has been part of processing it. But even that is dangerous because, as a friend of mine once said, isn't blogging about the blog one of the surest signs of its imminent demise?

Time will tell.

Taxing

I met with a tax person at H&R Block today after the Great Frustration of Monday afternoon which saw me trying to get answers about Schedule C from the IRS. Spending two hours on the phone being transferred from person to person an infinite number of times taught me that there is a department for a portion of every line on every form and no one department can answer any of your questions fully. All was not lost as I did kind of get a kick out of how all the IRS people introduced themselves as "Mrs. So-and-So." I don't know why that struck me as funny - probably because I pictured them all as Lily Tomlin as Ernestine.

After getting nowhere fast, I finally gave up and called the local H&R Block branch office here in town. I was bowled over by the fact that I could go in there and ask questions at no charge, so I made an appointment and told Heidi that this is what we're doing.

I went in to ask questions. I walked out with another appointment that will have them doing 2009's taxes for me. I imagine that this was part of the plan in letting me come in and ask questions for free, but I really don't mind.

For so many years, I've had nothing but a couple W2s, some mortgage interest, a few charitable contributions and the child tax credit. I over-withhold like crazy (a result of one year of under-withholding that saw us paying in a shitload) so we always get a sizable refund. But this year, with Heidi's writing actually making money, I had to fill out Schedule C and I found myself in over my head pretty quickly. I thought that I could do it - I even bought the Turbo Tax Home & Business edition this year and got all the way through the personal tax part, but when I got to the business section, even having the tax software was not enough

So Monday, for the first time since probably 2001, I will have someone doing my taxes. With all that's new and different with our tax situation this year, it's basically about peace of mind knowing that everything will be done correctly. I just want it to be done right. Sure, it's going to cost a bit more (and I kind of flushed the price of TurboTax down the toilet) but I figure that it was worth it to learn that it was more than I could do. And it's not like Heidi's going to stop writing just to make tax filing easier. (And with the way Special Delivery has taken off, I am not about to wish for that!)

In my life, just like the Boston song says, all I want is to have my peace of mind. It's hard to find in so many places, but this is one area that spending a little money to have a professional do the work I would have normally done will buy just that. I'll sleep a little better tonight because of it.

The place where nobody dared to go

Xanadu references are all over the place these days. Between XO's post about Sharleen Spiteri's "gonad shrinking" cover of the song and multiple references across the blogosphere comparing the new Goldfrapp songs to "Xanadu" (they say that like it's a bad thing), you really can't escape it.

There are certainly worse things in life.

I went searching for the Xanadu finale on YouTube, which was harder to find than I thought it might be. As I said over on Facebook, it's 8 minutes of cheese at its absolute finest. You owe it to yourself to watch it. Wait for Mrs. Ming the Merciless at about 6:50.



I saw Xanadu at the Carroll theater when I was probably 8 years old. My mom took me to it and I remember nearly nothing of seeing it, but I do remember it being played about a half a million times on HBO, which is where I consumed it in exceptionally large doses. Forced to be totally honest, the movie really is pretty awful. Olivia Newton-John is not an exceptional actress (although she acts circles around Michael Beck as her love interest) and the story features just about every recycled Hollywood cliche there is. But for some reason, it's better than it should be. Panned at the time, it's somehow managed to become a cult classic.

I maintain that if it weren't for the music, this movie would be completely forgotten. We had the Xanadu soundtrack on 8-track cassette tape and for years that was the only version of the soundtrack we had. I purchased it on cassette tape in 1991 and it was eaten by my Walkman about 2 weeks after I purchased it. A year later, I found a used vinyl copy of it in a record store which I still own today. Finding the soundtrack on CD was a quest that seemed nearly impossible until I found an import copy of it in the Iowa City Best Buy. The sound quality was fair at best but it was on CD! It was ultimately properly released in the U.S. with pristine sound quality and that's the version I have today.

But one of my favorite (and most enduring) stories of Xanadu is how I subjected Heidi to the movie very VERY early in our relationship. We'd probably been dating a couple of months and I very excitedly - probably too excitedly - invited her over to watch Xanadu with me. Bless her, she tolerated it with great finesse and I think she actually liked it a little bit. Although looking back, she was probably just enamored with me. That was also the night we looked at my French copy of the Sex book. If you're looking for a moment where the deal was probably sealed, I think that was it - Heidi would probably agree. In who else's life besides mine would that happen?

The good news is that Olivia can still sing this song. Although her voice is showing some signs of aging, she's a great live act - one that I would go see again in a heartbeat. She appreciates her role as nostalgia act and milks it for every last bit that she can. For you, Xanadu.

Year of 25 Books: #3 - Life With My Sister Madonna

In hindsight, exactly why it took me a year and a half to read Christopher Ciccone's Life With My Sister Madonna is something that I really can't explain. I think it was because I heard all the juiciest bits when he was doing the talk show circuit right around the time of the book's release. And really, I didn't find those juicy bits all that juicy - certainly not juicy enough to plunk down 26 bucks for the hardcover. But it arrived rather unexpectedly in a package from a friend this Christmas and I knew right then and there that I simply could ignore it no longer. And wouldn't you know it, my initial reaction was right. For something that's billed as a scandalous tell-all about the world's most famous woman, there's precious little scandal and not a whole lot of tell-all, at least not of anything that we didn't either already know or strongly suspect.

The book starts out on opening night of The Girlie Show, when Christopher and Madonna are at their closest. He hints at the trouble to come by describing the five stages that "everyone who works for [Madonna] inevitably goes through." Describing her as a sun, they start in disillusionment, then travel into being in her "warmth and attention." Stage 3 is closer yet, while stage 4 is the "coldest place of all, the place right up close to her." And from there it's not long till they reach stage 5 - "no more sunlight, no more closeness, no more Madonna." From there, he heads back to their youth in Michigan, recounting his formative years, including the loss of their mother (which affected Christopher to a much smaller degree than it did Madonna.) Madonna leaves for New York and he eventually follows her, where she becomes a pop superstar and he becomes, well, her brother. This makes for a pretty fascinating tale of a man caught up in his own insecurities, all the while basking in the white hot fame of Madonna.

As a long-time, dyed-in-the-wool Madonna fan, this book was an interesting combination of "yeah, I kinda already knew that" and titillating voyeurism into Madonna's inner circle. So much of Madonna's life has been laid bare, both literally and figuratively, that it seems like there's nothing that could possibly shock me. And mostly, that was true. Madonna smoked pot? GASP! You mean to tell me that Madonna is kind of a bitch and she discards people when they cease to be of use to her? I NEVER would have thought that! And seriously, despite the fact that she has been world-famous for 25 years, she still deals with massive insecurity and significant control issues? Who'd have thought it?

The book is hardly an exhaustive look at Madonna's career - it is, after all, Christopher's story as it relates to his relationship with Madonna. Still, that was one of the book's disappointments. It glossed over so many important Madonna moments - the making of Evita, for example, is barely more than a footnote - that it seems like there's no way we're getting the whole story. I did, however, enjoy his account of Blond Ambition and the filming of Truth or Dare. By his account, the movie is hardly a documentary. Rather, each scene was meticulously crafted by Madonna. Again, interesting to hear, but nothing that most fans didn't already assume was at least partially true anyway. But he saves his harshest words for the scene at their mother's grave, accusing Madonna of "relegating [their] mother to the role of mere extra in her movie."

The deterioration of their relationship plays out like a bad car wreck - painful to watch, but you can hardly look away. Madonna is portrayed in an extremely unflattering light, refusing to pay for his services as a designer, accusing him of drug and alcohol abuse and virtually shutting him out of her life and the lives of her children. Her disregard for her own brother stands in stark contrast to the teachings of the Kabbalah which she claims to support so completely. On the other hand though, Christopher does himself no favors. He frequently comes across as whiny and entitled, dropping names of celebrities he's met or worked with throughout the book like we're supposed to be impressed. And the question of his drug addiction was never really answered to my satisfaction either. Perhaps he is not an addict (he admits to recreational drug use), but I would argue that many addicts take years to fess up to their addictions.

In the end, what surprised me most about the book is how Christopher and Madonna have a relationship much like most siblings, only filtered through the prism of her mega-fame. They fight, they compete, they know each other's weak spots by virtue of knowing each other from the very beginning. They might go years without speaking. They disagree on one thing and but agree on others. But through it all, they love each other pretty much unconditionally, even when they can't stand each other, because that's what family does.

Despite the fact that the cover of the book features one of the worst photos of Madonna I've ever seen, I still heartily recommend it - especially to fans. They won't be shocked by accounts of her bitchiness and really, if we're really honest about it, we like the bitchiness.

The book also features some great candid shots of Madonna - this one of Madonna, pregnant with Lola, is my favorite:

Dig that harvest gold dishwasher! And is that Jell-O mold in the background?

Easy bake Pam

This was originally going to be a blog post about how I felt like today had been a colossal fail on nearly every front. To make a long (and painful) story short, I woke up to a computer corrupted with spyware. I don't know how it happened. I hadn't even done anything that would put me at risk except for the teensy little detail of not renewing Norton because no paycheck had an extra 50 bucks in it. Lesson learned. Well, I got that all cleaned up and now the damn computer has applications that refuse to connect to the internet. What I probably need to do is a complete Windows reinstall. I'm no stranger to that as I did one about 14 months ago after a similar experience.

Taxes were also on the agenda today - they're nearly complete with just Schedule C and all its sundry forms which we have to file for the first time since Heidi made money on her books in 2009. I tweeted earlier that trying to figure it out is like reading through muddy water without my glasses and that's only a slight exaggeration. We have it mostly figured out, but still. Compound the fact that TurboTax is one of the programs that will not connect to the internet so e-file is in question and I have had one anxious day. It's the first one in a while. I tried turning it off, telling myself it was okay. For whatever reason, I couldn't get off the roller coaster.

One day when Anna was having a bad day, I told her "Don't let one bad thing ruin your whole day." I was complaining to Heidi about my day while I did up the supper dishes and Anna must have overheard me because she echoed my own words back at me tonight. It was a sit-up-and-take-notice moment. So we did what any sane person would do - we got out the Easy Bake Oven.

We made chocolate chip cookies and listened to my iPod. She played the pan pusher like a guitar to the most random song. It was Billy Gilman's duet with Pam Tillis "Almost Over (Getting Over You)".

I downloaded that song on a whim a couple years ago and maybe listened to it once or twice before it got lost in the iTunes Sea. It showed up on one of my random songs playlists so it's been getting more play than usual. Personally, while I like the song, it's slightly unsettling as the (at the time) barely-legal Gilman is almost over getting over 51 year-old Tillis. Watch out Madonna! But Anna loved it. We listened to it three times in a row. We danced around the kitchen and generally looked like idiots, but we had a great time.

So I used it as a spring board to introduce her to some other Pam Tillis songs, most notably "Mi Vida Loca" which seemed appropriate for today.



It was a good way to end the day and although I'm not looking forward to reinstalling Windows (and everything else), I care a little bit less.

Year of 25 Books: #2 - Bonk

I picked up Mary Roach's Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science & Sex from the library with a little bit of trepidation. I absolutely loved her first book - Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. I still remember being on a plane (probably to a Madonna show) and reading the chapter about how they determined the cause of a plane crash based on the bodies that were pulled from the wreckage. I contemplated stopping and resuming once I was safely on the ground, but then decided I wouldn't stop reading a chapter about auto accidents while riding in a car. So when Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife came out a few years later, I couldn't wait to read it. Sadly, it left me a little bit cold, paling in comparison to Stiff. Was it possible that Roach was a one-book wonder?

I'm happy to report that Roach is back on her game. Since sex is the topic of the book, it's kind of a can't-lose proposition for her. I mean, who ISN'T going to enjoy reading about this? Bonk does follow the pattern of her first two books, combining an unconventional topic for a science book with Roach's hilarious voice. Roach is a seriously funny writer, making what could otherwise be a dry, boring book about sex and sex research into an engaging read. Her dry observations about the topic had me frequently laughing out loud (which almost always led Anna to ask "Dad, what's so funny?" Me: "Oh, nothing honey, just something I read.") But as funny as the main portion of the book is, her footnotes are quite possibly even funnier - although their footnoted nature distracts from the reading of the text. I think Roach should have found a way to blend them in - she could probably do so seamlessly.

While certainly not comprehensive in scope, Roach does her best to explore a variety of topics. Erectile dysfunction, female sexual arousal disorder (and the attempts to treat it), penile implants (that chapter had me squirming in my seat), orgasm without arousal, the effects of hormones on sexual response, vibrators - you name it, she probably investigated it. Roach's exquisite and meticulous research on each topic shows and when you add in her hilarious take on all this, it makes for a compelling (and very easy) read.

If I could level any criticism at the book, it would be that it probably carried on for 50 pages too long. As funny as Roach's writing is, she reaches a point of diminishing returns, almost as if you can see the wheels turning in her head saying "what funny thing can I end this paragraph with?" What seems effortless at first becomes kind of distracting after nearly 300 pages.

Still, it's highly recommended. Science reading for non-science people is a tough nut to crack and Roach does it with remarkable ease. Better than Spook but not as good as Stiff, it's worth a read.

Like father, like daughter

This is one of my daughter's favorite shirts.

Can you read what it says? If not, click on the picture and you'll see it says "Candy Shop." We gave this to her as part of a Valentine's Day present this year. When I saw it at Target, I simply couldn't resist it.

It made my heart go pitter-patter when she got it and immediately got the reference. It shouldn't have surprised me, especially after her comments on "candy galore" and "Hey Dad, her sugar is raw." Yep, I must be doing something right.

Whenever she wears it (which is frequently), I always have to walk up to her and start singing "Say which flavor you like and I'll have it for you..." which immediately elicits a frustrated "Daaaaaad!" response - a foretaste of what is to come, no doubt. But I think that she secretly likes it. I have to be careful about what I say about clothes she wears. Back when she was 3 or 4, I made an offhand comment about how a shirt she had made her look like a jailbird (black and white stripes) and her response was to never wear it again. Needless to say, it was not one of my more stellar parenting moments, but I think I more than made up for it here.

Naturally, none of her friends get the reference. She just tells me that everyone keeps trying to pick the candy off of her shirt.

Mad at the snow

I just got back in from clearing the driveway of snow. Again. It's probably (no joke) the 20th time this winter I have done it. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that we'd still have the snow from the first blizzard (December 8th) in February. I think there have been about 5 days of melting, none of which have been serious or have resulted in an significant loss of snow pack.

I really love winter. I am fond of saying that I'll take the coldest, snowiest, windiest day of winter over the hottest, muggiest day of the summer. And it's still true. But I have to say that this winter has really broken me. As Heidi said in her blog post yesterday, the snow is still pretty when it's coming down, but it feels almost malevolent at this point, almost as if it's just another punch in the gut when we're down. I look back to the days right after the first blizzard and we were marveling at how much snow we had. Little did we know that we hadn't seen anything yet. The best description of the winter came from Heidi last night as we were leaving the school carnival - in a word, wearying.

It makes the drama of the purchase of the new snowblower seem quaint - could you imagine how we would have made it through without a dependably starting snowblower? It's more than paid for itself this winter alone. Even if we don't have to use it for another 5 years (doubtful), I still don't regret it.

But here's where I am with the winter at this point - and it's really posing quite a conundrum for me. Yeah, I'm so sick of shoveling and snowblowing, of snow pack in the wheel wells of the car, of dangerous looking icicles and even more dangerous looking ice dams on my roof. But I'm also amazingly sick and tired of people bitching about it. It really is, as Joan said, like being mad at the dirt. It hasn't done us any good - in fact, I think we're all (myself definitely included in that blanket statement) just feeding back on ourselves, creating more drama than is necessary. I know that I get caught in the loop of "what the fuck am I going to do if my roof is trashed?" but seriously, all that does is give me an ulcer. The best we can do at this point is wait till spring and see what happens. No amount of catastrophizing or worrying will change the outcome now.

So from now on, I'm done bitching about winter. Whenever I'm tempted to become irate with the forecast of snow (2 to 4 inches before the weekend's out), I'll just think of this little ditty that I stumbled across on YouTube.

Should have been singles

My friend P. Viktor and I hatched the idea for this post a few weeks ago while discussing songs that Madonna has released that should have been singles but, for whatever reason were not. We each picked five songs from Madonna's back catalog (we compared notes early on so to make sure there was no overlap) and, after much deliberation, I've finally settled on mine. His five choices can be found on his blog. He is also hosting on his site a limited-time-only download of the non-singles that we chose plus 4 more so that all of her studio albums are represented. And Jeff, I regret to inform you that "Spanish Eyes" and "Mer Girl" are not among my five choices.

Dan's Top 5 Madonna Songs That Should Have Been Singles

1) Over & Over (from Like A Virgin)
Of all the Madonna songs that should have been singles, this one is the one that I think deserves that honor the most. Madonna was doing everything right at this point in her career, riding high with the Like A Virgin album and spinning off career-defining singles like "Material Girl," "Dress You Up" and of course, the title track. "Over & Over" feels like it's cut from a slightly different cloth than the rest of the album - it's still 80s pop, but the guitar lick in the chorus is what sets it apart. Guitars, despite their relative frequency in Madonna's live shows, are pretty scarce on her studio albums. As I've blogged before, the lyrics are very personally inspiring to me, a line from the bridge is currently the tag line for this blog. I'm not afraid to say I hear a different beat/Oh, and I'll go out in the street/And I will shout it again from the highest mountain. It's Madonna as she's just starting to climb the mountain of fame and fortune and it's simply fantastic. Definitely should be brought out for the next tour.



2) Something To Remember (from I'm Breathless)
I have always felt like I'm Breathless is Madonna's forgotten album, its lifespan cut short by the release of The Immaculate Collection. Containing music "from and inspired by the film Dick Tracy" I'm Breathless is very showtuney and non-Madonna and it is one of her lowest selling albums from that time period. "Something To Remember" is, however, a hidden jewel on that album. Madonna liked it so much that she plucked it out of relative obscurity and not only put it on her 1995 ballads collection but also named the damn thing after it. I've always been of the opinion that if WB was so insistent on releasing an old song from that project as a single, they should have gone with "Something To Remember" rather than insisting on releasing "Love Don't Live Here Anymore."

Her vocals are strong, in a pre-Evita way and the production is solid. While many of the songs on I'm Breathless play like novelty songs - even top 10 hit "Hanky Panky" - this is one that I could imagine hearing on pop radio. It is, however, marred by Madonna's infamous "chewing" of her you - I was not your woman/I was not your friend/But chew gave me/Something to remember. My sister and I would always change it to "chew gave me/oropharyngeal cancer." Chewing of yous really is unforgivable, but we give it a pass because the song is just so damn good.

3) Spotlight (from You Can Dance)
I nearly disqualified this song as technically, it was a single - in Japan. I remember it getting some minor radio airplay in late 1987, but there was no official single release in the US, no video, and subsequently, it did not chart on the Hot 100. If it had been released, it would have been another Top 10 for Madonna without question. It feels every little bit like the True Blue cast off that it is and it would have been very much at home on that album. Instead, it was the lone new song on Madonna's first compilation, You Can Dance. It's funny, because the song is very strong in that the combination of vocals and production is again superb, but it's also as light as a feather. Had it been recorded by a lesser artist, it would have been a completely forgettable bit of 80s fluff. It's still fluff, even in Madonna's capable hands, but as I always say about "Who's That Girl" - for fluff, it's quite brilliant.

4) Sky Fits Heaven (from Ray of Light)
Even though the lyrics came partially from a Gap ad, "Sky Fits Heaven" is the strongest non-single on Ray of Light. Like most of of the rest of the album, it is full of blips and bleeps courtesy of William Orbit. "Sky Fits Heaven" is a "driving fast at night with the windows down" song, especially during the "traveling down my own road/watching the signs as I go" section. I love how she hearkens back to "Bedtime Story" with the "Traveling, traveling..." part. Its inclusion in the Drowned World Tour was a huge surprise (mostly because I had not spoiled the set list like I have on every other tour since.) I always admire how Madonna makes such bold choices of obscure album tracks for her live shows, even though the Drowned World Tour certainly had more than its fair share of obscure album tracks.



5) Devil Wouldn't Recognize You (from Hard Candy)
This blog is littered with criticism of Hard Candy and its songs. Thanks to the distance granted by the nearly 2 years since its release, my opinion on Hard Candy is that it is somehow less than the sum of its parts. I like quite a few of the individual songs, but don't really care for the album much. "Devil Wouldn't Recognize You" is easily my favorite of all the songs on Hard Candy. Truth be told, it had been a really long time since we had a true Madonna ballad, and "Devil" fits the bill nicely. Its minor key, interesting rhyming scheme and a much more organic pairing of Madonna and Justin Timberlake than the herky-jerky "4 Minutes" are all points in its favor.

I wonder though, if this song isn't best left as an album track. XO, in his review of Hard Candy, compared "Devil" to Bedtime Stories' "Love Tried To Welcome Me" saying "it's the kind of album track that sticks with you for years because it's never overplayed." It would have probably not charted and considering her track record with videos these days, we couldn't even count on something amazing there, although I can think of no track more deserving of a brilliant video. But we do have the performance of the song from the Sticky & Sweet Tour, which was stunning.



Now get on over to P. Viktor's blog and read about his choices.

Ease on down

One of my favorite things to do to help rein in my unwieldy iTunes library is to make smart playlists that randomly pick songs. I have 3 such playlists right now: Random 80 Minutes, Random 25 Songs and Another Random 80 Minutes. What they lack in creative naming, they make up for in eclectic song choices. What's even better is since they are smart playlists with live-updating, if I ever get tired of a few songs on the list, I delete them and replacements from the library magically appear. This process pulls stuff out of the furthest reaches of the library, songs I might not even think of otherwise.

Which is how "Ease On Down The Road" from the movie version of The Wiz came to be one of the my most played songs this week. It got me to thinking (as I am wont to do every couple of years) that I really should rewatch The Wiz in all its late 70s glory.

The only problem with that idea is that The Wiz is really an absolutely horrible movie. The concept of the musical is cool and intriguing. Based very loosely on L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, it has all the familiar cast of characters, this time portrayed by an all African-American cast. Instead of Kansas, it's Harlem. Instead of a tornado whisking Dorothy away to Oz, it's a snowstorm. Oz is an odd amalgam of fantasyland and 70s New York City. And instead of Judy Garland as Dorothy, it's Diana Ross. Too bad the execution did not live up to the concept.

As a kid, I was kind of obsessed with this movie. In hindsight, this does not surprise me but what DOES surprise me is that I was never able to watch it all the way through. Oh, I managed to get through the beginning just fine. Dorothy is deposited in a graffiti-filled Munchkinland and the standard Oz set up ensues. But really, I could never make it much past the scenes immediately following the introduction of the Scarecrow and the descent down the roller coasters of Coney Island to find the Tin Man. But it was in there that "Ease On Down The Road" makes its first appearance




I finally sat down in 1995 and watched the entire movie. It was a huge chore. I have a pretty high tolerance for musicals (higher than most guys my age) and even I had a hard time making it through this movie. Michael Jackson's turn as the Scarecrow is pretty good. I enjoyed 70s New York turned on its side a little bit through its reworking as Oz. But the songs are, by and large, horrible. Aside from "Ease On Down The Road," the only other song I even remember from this movie is "Brand New Day" which is performed just after Evilene the Wicked Witch gets flushed down a gigantic toilet. (yes, believe it.) Too many of the songs feature an extreme close-up on Diana Ross singing a solo, which considering Ross' famous diva-sized ego, should surprise no one.

I love the story about how Diana Ross allegedly forced her way into being cast as Dorothy, despite the fact that the filmmakers wanted to cast Stephanie Mills who had originated the role in the Broadway production. The argument was that Ross was too old, which caused Ross to make what seems to be some back-room deals in order to insure that she be cast as Dorothy, ultimately tying financing and production to her being cast in the role. You can read all about it here, but it's amazing! Despite the intrigue, it's still not my favorite Diana Ross story. That will always be the story of the DUI that Ross received in Tuscon, AZ while driving to rent a video from Blockbuster. Seriously, Diana Ross has to rent her own movies from Blockbuster? She's DIANA ROSS for Pete's sake! Jeff and I found great humor in this unfortunate event which probably means we're going straight to hell.

I've talked more about The Wiz than I thought I could, which means I'm inevitably going to go get the DVD from the library or from Netflix and at least watch highlights. If only it were streaming on the Netflix box!

(and I managed to get through the whole post without making a pee joke. Oops, I spoke too soon.)

Monolith

There's a lot of, well, buzz about Google Buzz. Admittedly, I have not looked into it. Like I need any more social media sites to worry about - the ones I have now cause me enough consternation and grief as it is. All reports seem to indicate that it's less locked down than either Twitter or Facebook so I can't imagine it doing much except for people who really don't care one whit about their online privacy. It is, however, Google so there's no telling.

I've talked a lot on these pages about Facebook and how I both love and hate it. In spite of the fact that I get to decide who I let in, it still seems like the large number of people from different parts of my life all agglomerated in one spot is a bit daunting at times. Facebook helped address that problem with new privacy settings granting me He-Man like power in allowing certain friends to see or not see certain things. It makes it sound like I'm living this seedy double life and no matter how much I wish that to be true some days, nothing could be further from the truth. I just feel like that not everyone needs to know everything about me, or even the small amount that I post online. There's also a false sense of security in that control - no matter who you block, you're still posting it on the internet. There's no stopping someone from retweeting or sharing something that you did or posted with a mutual friend and then there it goes. As Olivia so eloquently put it, "once the rumor spreads, the truth is just a thing of the past."

While this is not a new thing for me to think about, I have been having an increasingly difficult time reconciling this feeling. It wasn't until a couple weeks ago that someone put it in terms that really resonated for me. I'm paraphrasing, which she was as well, but it goes something like this:

"The definition of good mental health is knowing the appropriate response based on the person and the situation."

She (and I) would argue that social media, especially Facebook, takes away that ability to make those decisions. Instead, you're forced into one monolithic response to everyone around you. Personally, I know that most of my inner circle (family, close friends) get me enough that pretty much anything I say will be at least partially understood - but what about the people I graduated from high school with? Co-workers? Long lost old acquaintances? Not so much and not quite as "safe." As usual for me, it's about boundaries and in the world of social media, boundaries are increasingly nebulous.

The same person who was talking to me about this also thinks that whenever successful communication between people occurs, it should be classified as a minor miracle. With all the things that can go wrong or be misinterpreted when people are trying to communicate, I would have to agree with her. It's a reminder to us all to be a bit more forgiving of the people around us. But it's also a mild warning that I think can apply well to social media.

No one is a monolith, and no one should be forced to be one.

Now excuse me while I go post a Barbara Mandrell video to Facebook.

Miraculous

We are getting another foot of snow today. A friend of mine only half-joked that today was his 34th death-defying snow commute of the season. Normally, I like snow and winter, but right now, when I look at it, I find myself almost angry at it. Winter has been fired so many times this year that the joke is getting old because no one's joking anymore. I don't know what to do with all the snow on, in and around the driveway. The icicles hanging from the edge of the house look like daggers. If we weren't already getting new gutters in the spring, we would be now. Those who doubt climate change are simply not paying attention.

Amongst all this, my friend Lucas sent me a link to some great news. Come April 27th, there will be new Mary Chapin Carpenter.

I am always so pleased by new Mary Chapin Carpenter. The woman could sing the yellow pages and I would listen. According to the press release, the songs on the new album, The Age of Miracles, were written in 2007 when she was recovering from a pulmonary embolism. They explore pretty familiar territory for Carpenter - love, relationships, etc. Listening to the sound samples on the Rounder site, it sounds like this album will be more Between Here & Gone in that the focus is on slower, more pensive songs and less of the spitfire that characterized her last record, The Calling. We'll see how it goes although I like the sound of pretty much everything. In April, I may not be in the mood for slow and pensive, but I bet I'll find a way. I always manage to.

There will also be a national tour - hopefully not to be canceled by an life threatening illness this time around. I would love to be able to get to that show although I've heard mixed reviews regarding her live performances.

In the meantime, you can download what appears to be an officially sanctioned mp3 of one of the songs "I Was A Bird" from this site. You can also download an album sampler ("I Put My Ring Back On" is an early favorite.)

April 27th can't come soon enough. And by then, most of this snow should be gone.

Sick sick sick

I've spent the vast majority of this weekend sick. After Heidi got rather violently ill on Wednesday night (documented in glorious Technicolor here), I figured that I was pretty much a goner. But I have managed to avoid what appeared to be certain infection in the past, so I thought perhaps I'd get lucky again and somehow dodge the bullet. I even floated the theory that perhaps you needed two X chromosomes to get it, based on the fact that Anna had had pretty much the same thing a week prior.

No such luck. I woke up Friday morning not quite feeling right, but chalked it up to a bad night's sleep. Heidi warned me that was how it started. She said that if I couldn't shake the tired off, I needed to come home. I didn't. I pushed through the day and honestly, I didn't really feel all that bad for most of the day. We even went out to Perkins on Friday night and had I been really sick, that wouldn't have even sounded good. But even as we pulled into the driveway for the evening, I knew that I had begun the steady decline that would pretty much come to define the weekend.

Fortunately, my sickness never approached the horrific lows that Heidi's did and for that I am truly thankful. There was a tense moment at 2AM on Saturday morning that had me hugging the toilet bowl (and momentarily forgetting where I was) but it never actually came to actual puking. Being sick is never fun and the first 12 hours are always the worst. Those 12 hours are always followed by the sliver of time in which you feel so much better than you did you can hardly believe it. Unfortunately, that time is followed by 48 hours of "would-you-just-hurry-up-and-get-well-already." That's the time period I'm in right now.

I'll be going to work tomorrow, no doubt about it. My energy level is back up to about 90% of usual and there's no real reason to miss. Yeah, I'm ticked I got sick on a weekend - who wants to get sick on a weekend? - but rather than dwell on the negative, I'm going to try to put a positive spin on it. This weekend saw me spending more time than usual on the couch in front of the TV. I blew through 5 episodes of The X-Files (including "Bad Blood" - man, this season is just about the best yet) and we watched more Simpsons episodes than you can possibly imagine. I also spontaneously napped several times yesterday for a combined total of several hours which was pretty much what my body needed.

The funny thing is that I think my body was in need of this kind of a weekend anyway, sick or not. We had grand plans for this weekend - plans that included shipping Anna off to Camp Grandma while we got together with Jeff and Caryle. The plans with Jeff and Caryle fell apart first and then an unexpected trip to the hospital for Heidi's grandfather cancelled Camp Grandma. And even if these cancellations had not occurred, the combination of my sickness and yet another snowstorm would have vetoed the entire weekend. In the end, I'm glad I stayed home. Not that I wouldn't have loved to have done all those things, but I think that in being sick, I finally gave myself permission to do that which I like to do the least - stop and take care of myself.

The only thing worse than being sick on a weekend is not taking anything away from it. And I did. So you see, being sick isn't all bad. Just mostly. (they mostly come at night...mostly.)

Year of 25 Books: #1 - Pride & Prejudice & Zombies

You might recall that about a month ago I was bemoaning the fact that I just don't read as much as I used to. It was at that time that I laid down the challenge (mostly to myself) to read 25 books this year, allowing only 5 of those to be rereads. I also pledged to blog about each book. In so doing, I managed to rope my friends P. Viktor and Bess into the act as well. P. Viktor (whose blog I have been reading since I randomly stumbled across it at the time of the release of "Hung Up" in 2005) has already managed to read and blog about two. I know that Bess has read several in January, but I have yet to see any blogging proof to substantiate this claim. ;)

I only read one book in January, which puts me behind right out of the gate. The book I chose was a Christmas gift - one I had asked for - Pride & Prejudice & Zombies by Jane Austen & Seth Grahame-Smith. When I first heard of this book, I thought that there was absolutely no way that they could screw this up. Zombie mayhem set in Jane Austen's classic story? I've been fond of Pride & Prejudice ever since Heidi and I watched the famous BBC miniseries on DVD nearly 8 years ago. I even liked the updated Keira Knightley version that was released in theaters in 2005. Considering my love all things zombie, surely the changes could only make it that much better.

Surely, I couldn't have been more mistaken. P&P&Z starts out strong. Much remains of Austen's original story, but many things have been turned on their head. Subtle dialogue changes and the insertion of zombies into Regency England seemed clever. Making Elizabeth Bennet, one of the most beloved heroines of British literature into a slayer of the undead was an interesting turn.

Sadly, the novelty wore off very quickly. As one of my friends who tried to read it and abandoned it said, the book is like an extended joke, one that remains long after it has worn out its welcome. The longer the story goes on, the more cracks in the story telling begin to appear. It became very obvious to me where Grahame-Smith was tacking on zombie references to Austen's original passages. As the story progressed, I found that I didn't really buy Elizabeth Bennet as a zombie killer and just kind of wished I was reading the original Pride & Prejudice. It suffered a fate worse than death (or undeath) for a book: the simple act of reading it became like doing homework. I just wanted it to be done. The book felt lazy which was not what I was expecting at all.

There were parts that worked. One of my favorite parts of the original Pride & Prejudice is the appearance of Mr. Collins and his eventual marriage to Charlotte Lucas. I enjoyed the zombie take on Charlotte's "marriage of convenience" to Mr. Collins and was one of the few points at which I laughed at the turn of events. I also liked the transformation of Lady Catherine DeBourgh into a zombie killer. For some reason, that played as more believable than Elizabeth Bennet.

As I finished the book, I realized that this book really is the literary equivalent of a Weird Al song. It's clever at first, only to become annoying and make you want to listen to the original song instead. I definitely was skimming in the last 50 pages. As a fan of both zombies and the original story of Pride & Prejudice, I felt like this book barfed all over both genres in the name of making a quick buck. Zombie fans will not find enough brain-eating to be satisfied, and Austen fans will find the alteration of their beloved story abhorrent.

So yeah, I can't imagine I'll be reading the to-be-published prequel coming out in March. I might see the upcoming movie, but only at the dollar theater.

I swear I saw a dragon!

Hollywood (or anyone for that matter) really has never managed to make a good dragon movie. Dragonslayer in 1981 wasn't too bad but the effects weren't remotely ready. Surely, I thought, what we need is some good CG, but in 1996, Dragonheart showed us the first completely computer generated dragon, but I never really bought it, plus the celebrity voice was very distracting. (Update: I realized I completely forgot about 2002's Reign Of Fire, which disappointed me because there weren't enough CG dragons. Thanks to Brendan for pointing out this glaring omission.)

At one of the cheap dollar movies I went to about a year or so ago, I saw the trailer for Dragon Wars, which apparently is now just D-War. Take a look.

I knew that it would suck, that there was NO WAY that it would be good. Still, I hoped. I skipped it at the dollar theater, not even figuring it to be worth a lousy dollar bill. Surely, all the best bits were in the trailer. When I saw that it was streaming on the Netflix box, I couldn't resist. And sure enough, I was right. The best bits ARE all in the trailer.

Outside of the special effects there is nothing redeemable about this film at all. The dialogue is bad, the actors are wooden, the story is incomprehensible. It has something to do with reincarnated ancient Koreans who somehow or another create dragons etc. etc. The reincarnated versions show up in modern day L.A. and so does a large serpent that, 500 years ago, was not allowed to become a dragon. It wreaks general havoc in the city, spiraling up the US Bank Tower in downtown L.A.

Despite the plot being completely laughable, I will say that the technology has arrived and the dragons are finally believable, although the main one is two parts Harry Potter basilisk and one part Roland Emmerich's Godzilla. Why any movie would take ANY inspiration from Godzilla is beyond me. The smaller dragons, which resembled winged velociraptors from the Jurassic Park films, were pretty cool and arrived at just about the time I was getting bored with the main nasty. Having seen them displayed so convincingly, I figure that Smaug will be amazing in The Hobbit.

All those dragons got me to thinking about my favorite dragon movie - that being Disney's Pete's Dragon. My 7 year-old self would gladly sacrifice all the special effects in the world for the presence of Helen Reddy. My 37 year-old self is perilously close to that same assessment.



Maybe Dragon Wars would have been improved with the Elliott the dragon and a song or two from Helen Reddy. The world will never know. What I do know is that the people of Passamaquoddy would have crapped their pants had the dragons from Dragon Wars shown up in their town.